Anna’s Video Pick: Planned Parenthood Up Close & Personal
As I write this, the US Congress has still not agreed on a budget to keep our government from shutting down. The sticking point between paying our soldiers and keeping federal offices functioning is a rider which the Republicans introduced to eliminate funding to Planned Parenthood—or as they pitch it, to eliminate funding for abortions.
I am trying to stop screaming and banging my head against the wall. Even the progressive alternative media has presented the issue completely in terms of the utterly fact-less Republican narrative. This is not about abortion!
Sen. John Kyl walked back his incendiary and erroneous attack upon Planned Parenthood funding in which he stated that well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does goes to abortion. Here’s his “clarification” — “his remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortion.”
And it is correct- Planned Parenthood provides abortions in addition to all their other women’s health services. And no, absolutely no federal funding goes to the provision of those abortions.
So keep in mind- when the Republicans speak, their remarks are not intended to be a factual statement. We got this information from John Kyl (R-AZ) himself.
Full disclosure- When I arrived in San Diego 33 years ago, I worked a couple of years for a temp agency and had no health insurance. Planned Parenthood essentially became my primary health provider that included affordable pap smears, mammograms and birth control and pretty much everything else.